


Who Let The Dogs Out

by spaceface (rowena24)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, First Meetings, Fluff, M/M, dog walker au, dogs are good and so is hance thank u for ur time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 20:07:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8115733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowena24/pseuds/spaceface
Summary: When Lance started his dog-walking business, he honestly didn’t expect to get very far. He certainly didn't expect to meet Hunk.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a birthday present for my wonderful amazing best friend Morgan, hope you enjoy!

When Lance started his dog-walking business, he honestly didn’t expect to get very far. He’d been walking his next door neighbor’s since forever, and they suggested expanding. He thought, why the hell not? He loved dogs, and his apartment’s ban on pets was slowly killing him. He figured it’d be a quick way to pick up a couple bucks between classes, and get some exercise while he was at it.

What he wasn’t counting on were people, tons of people in the area being busy as hell and having many, many fluffy dogs. Lance, being Lance, never turned down a customer. Hey, every dog meant not eating ramen for a night. So that was how he ended up trying to manage six dogs at once, because he apparently couldn’t schedule his appointments either. The workforce was gonna eat him alive. Or maybe that pitbull, Rodney, would, whichever came first. JK, Rodney, you big sweetheart, he knew you’d never eat him. Probably.

His usual route was basically circling campus a couple times, sometimes going past the physics building if he needed to quickly run in and drop off an assignment, tying the dogs’ leashes to the bike rack. He actually wasn’t behind on anything today, miracle of miracles, so he wasn’t planning on passing by at all--the physics building was near the quad and center of campus. With this many dogs, it was probably safer to keep them away from where a lot of foot-traffic was. Unfortunately, Lucille and Waffles had other ideas. And once those two started running and sniffing and exploring, the rest of the pack was off. Lance was but a powerless slave to his doggy masters. Either that, or maybe it was fate. Dogs were smarter than people about a lot of stuff, right? Maybe they knew something he didn’t.

Or maybe he was just fated to make an ass out of himself in front of every disastrously pretty person he met. Yeah, that was probably it.

The dogs were pulling him willy-nilly over grasses, paths, whatever, until he was basically being dragged across the quad to the student body’s likely amusement. He was trying to avoid a six-dog pileup in front of the physics building when Waffles pulled free.

“Come back here!” he yelled, but it was no use. Rodney was starting to get ideas, and so were Rover and Deedee, and shit, there went Lucille after Waffles. The next thing he knew, all of them were slamming into the poor unlucky sap who’d just walked out of the main entrance. Well, except for Walter, who was the only one he was still able to hold onto. He was a sweet but dumb little pug who probably didn’t know any better to try and taste freedom. Good boy, Walter. He almost reached down to start scratching his ears when he realized he should probably apologize to whoever his dogs had just mauled.

Lance looked up and the breath caught in his throat. There, on the ground, chuckling and trying to untangle himself from the many leashes winded around his legs, was a regular Adonis. Well, if Adonis was fat and wore a headband probably from a ninja anime, but you get the point. He needed to commission the entire art department to start making sculptures of him, stat. If he had been in literally any other situation right now, he would’ve probably already asked for Mystery Man’s number. But alas, dog slobber did not exactly lend itself to true romance. Lance decided he better start inserting his foot all the way into his mouth and began to apologize profusely.

“Oh my god, I am so, so, sorry. Dogs, amirite? They just… got minds of their own.” Foot, check. In mouth, check. That’s a wrap ladies and gentlemen, time to collect the pooches and avoid the area for the next few days. Except, of course, this had to happen at the department building he was majoring in. He was so fucked. Mystery Man, on the other hand, seemed to be having the time of his life.

“That’s… true, they certainly do,” he said, almost crying from laughter as he stood up. He even had a great laugh, all warm and big and full. This really wasn’t fair. Lance was pretty sure he was beet red at this point. “It’s totally fine, though. I’m a big dog lover too, I get it. Although I’ve never been ambitious enough to own, what, six at once?” If it was humanly possible, Lance flushed even more.

“Oh no, no, these aren’t mine. I just walk them,” he hastily clarified. Mystery Man nodded. He reached down to pet Walter, who was happy as could be, while Lance rounded up the other five. Once they were all in order, they both just kind of stared at one another, the silence somewhat awkward. Finally, Mystery Man cleared his throat.

“Well, I gotta get going. My shift starts in 10. It was nice meeting you. See you around?”

“Yeah, sure. Totally.” Lance managed to croak out. Mystery Man started to walk away, just like that, when he suddenly turned around.

“Oh, I forgot to get your name. I’m Hunk, by the way,” he said with an illegal boyish grin, offering his hand out to shake.

“Yes, you certainly are,” Lance muttered under his breath as he shook the other man’s hand. It was surprisingly soft. That comment earned him a raised eyebrow, though. He was suddenly red again. “Uh, uh, I mean, McClain. I’m Lance McClain. Pleasure’s all mine.” Mystery Man--Hunk smirked.

“Well, I’ll see you around then, Lance McClain.” He turned back around and lifted a hand in a wave. He didn’t look back. Lance stood there for another minute, the dogs starting to get restless and pulling on their leashes again, but he held on tight this time.

God, he was so fucked.

*********

The next day, Lance was beginning to curse any and all higher powers for having such a sick sense of humor. He was only walking five dogs this time, which would’ve been a little better, except they were the same pack as yesterday, minus Walter. Waffles and Lucille were still hell-bent on ruining his life, because they led the pack on the same reckless chase as yesterday. They wanted to run in the quad just to find squirrels to antagonize, he swore. Or maybe it was the heartless mechanisms of fate at work, because Lucille dragged all of them over to the physics building area just a Hunk seemed to be leaving again. Time to embarrass himself once again.

At least this time, Lance made sure to hang onto the dog leashes for dear life and get them to heel before they made another literal dogpile on the other man. Hunk was smiling that megawatt grin again as he reached down to pet the dogs again.

“Well, hello again,” he cooed, petting a very satisfied Deedee. He looked up at Lance. “Hello to you, too.”

“Hey,” Lance said, yanking on Rodney’s leash as he tried to go after a squirrel.

“Do you usually come through here? I wouldn’t mind seeing these cuties regularly,” Hunk asked, his tone carefully measured. He was also very pointedly looking at Lance at the “cuties” line. He felt his neck heating up again. Shit, why was this guy able to make him blush at any little thing?

“No, I mean, this isn’t my usual route. I’m not, um, I am through here all the time, but for class. Minus the cuties, so.” He cut off his rambling before he could go any further. Could he maybe chill? Hunk only seemed to light up further, though. He straightened up and took a step toward Lance.

“Oh really? What’s your major?”

“Astrophysics.” Hunk’s eyes widened and he slowly nodded.

“Nice, dude! I’m engineering. Haven’t decided if I’m doing mechanical or--” He was abruptly cut off by Rover bodily slamming into him. Hunk staggered slightly as the dog stood on his hind legs, trying to climb up the large man and panting excitedly.

“Down, Rover. Down, boy,” Lance hissed, lightly tugging at the leash. Rover was a huge mastiff and did his own thing 90% of the time, though. Most of the time that coincided with Lance’s thing, but this was one of those exceptions. Hunk still didn’t seem to have a problem getting attacked lovingly by dogs 2 days in a row, which, okay, he understood. Frankly, the way he was scritching at Rover’s ears and almost giggling just made him that much more attractive. Rover was very independent and very smart. If he immediately trusted Hunk like this, then Lance was pretty damn inclined to trust him, too.

“Hey there, boy, I thought that was you yesterday? Why didn’t you say hi, I missed you, silly boy,” Hunk was cooing to the very, very pleased mastiff. Wait, what?

“Do you… know Rover?” Lance asked, incredulous. Hunk seemed to blush a little at being heard, and straightened up a bit, shooing Rover down.

“Oh, yeah! He’s, uh, I know his owner. We’re both in engineering? And I come over to their place a lot because we always end up working together for projects and stuff.” Lance couldn’t believe this.

“Don’t tell me _you’re_ Pidge’s rival genius or whatever, holy shit!” Hunk sheepishly scratched the back of his neck.

“Oh my god, are they still doing that? That little gremlin’s gonna have to admit one of these days I’m always gonna be top of the class.” Lance was gonna kill Pidge. He was gonna kill them; how the _hell_ had they never mentioned their “rival” was an actual dream? “But wait, how do you know them? I know Pidge well enough to know they don’t do the whole ‘friends’ thing much.”

“They’re my neighbor! Dude, I’ve been the one walking Rover while you’re doing all your engineering work. They’re the one who gave me the push to start this dog-walking business, and, yeah. Me and Pidgimon go way back.” Hunk snorted, and soon they were both laughing at the weirdness of this coincidence.

“Pidgimon, oh my god. I would pay to see you call them that to their face.”

“No way, man, I’m too young to die.” That just got the both of them cackling again. When they both settled down, Hunk turned back to Lance with a soft smile on his face.

“It really is a small world, huh?” Lance felt his heart skip a beat. For how absolutely huge the universe was, it was pretty insane that all these coincidences had lined up so he was standing here having a moment with this sweet, gorgeous man, while dogs ran and barked around their feet.

“Yeah,” he replied breathlessly. “I mean, technically speaking, no, but. I know what you mean.” Hunk rolled his eyes.

“Astrophysics majors,” he muttered. There was another beat of silence and Lance felt his heart in his throat. This was it, he thought. He had to ask him out now, before this moment was lost completely. Who knew when the universe would line up like this again? A million words he could say flew through his mind and got stuck behind his throat. Should he go for something smooth and poetic, a dumb space joke, just be completely blunt, what?

“Hey, do you… wanna go get some coffee or something?” Hunk asked, shoving his hands in his pockets, now slightly blushing himself. Or, you know, the other man could beat him to the punch. He’d be a little miffed at being, really, out-flirted at every turn, but he was just way too giddy at the prospect of a date with him.

“Y-yeah, totally! I just have to, you know,” he gestured loosely at the dogs, who were starting to get antsy again. “Finish walking these guys.”

“Cool, yeah, of course.” Hunk was definitely blushing now. Lance felt his pulse pick up and a grin of his own work his way to his face. “I could… help you if you want?” That… sounded like a really great idea, actually.

“Sure.” He handed Hunk Rover and Deedee’s leashes, since they both seemed to be pretty fond of him already. As soon as they started walking, Waffles took off again at breakneck speed, way too excited after the delay Lance took to chat with Hunk. It was a lot easier to manage three than five, and Lance had to admit it was kind of fun with Hunk being pulled along, too. Soon enough, they were both whooping and hollering and laughing and running, and probably being a terror to anyone who had classes with windows open right now. 

He and Hunk made eye contact, and he felt the magnetic pull, the electricity zinging between them. Hunk felt it too, it was impossible for him not to. And in that moment, with the two of them and the dogs, all the stars were aligned.


End file.
